BizBook Nuggets

The Ethical Executive: 45 Psychological Traps

The Ethical Executive: Becoming Aware of the Root Causes of Unethical Behavior: 45 Psychological Traps that Every One of Us Falls Prey To by Robert Hoyk and Paul Hersey, Stanford Business Press, 2008.

This is one book worth reading, for anyone in an organization faced with ethical choices everyday.

Even with a solid foundation of good moral values, no one is immune to making unethical choices.

Ethical slips and traps are rampant, from telling white lies that protect a friend, to ignoring a gut feeling and following orders when we know better.

Not a month goes by without some highly publicized ethical scandal. Be it tax evasion, executive pay excesses, sexual dalliances and outright fraud, many individuals are simply unable to resist temptation. 

Does this make the perpetrators corrupt sociopaths?

From Boomers to Bloggers: Success Strategies Across Generations

From Boomers to Bloggers: Success Strategies Across Generations, by Misti Burmeister

This is an important new book, out today, on how businesses can succeed, as “Bloggers” replace “Boomers” in the workforce. (Buy it today and benefit from amazing bonuses at www.InspirionInc.com.)

Together, with the support of friends and colleagues, Misti is launching an Amazon.com campaign to offer high-valued resources, free of charge for those who purchase the book today. Go here for more details.

A team of distinguished experts, including Zig Ziglar, Mac Cassidy and Bob Burg, are contributing to this campaign to bring you an amazing list of bonus gifts valued at over $1,300!

Click here to see the full list of experts and your free rewards.

Here is information about the book:

Today’s businesses face two significant intergenerational problems: older workers with a lot of knowledge are retiring and companies don’t have a knowledge-transfer process in place; and the young professionals coming in have different expectations than the boomers headed out the door.

Rules for Renegades by Christine Comoford-Lynch

This book rocks. I knew it was going to be part autobiographical, part business, part career-oriented. After all, the sub-title reads, "How to make more money, rock your career, and revel in your individuality." I didn't know it was going to be so profound.

I'd never heard of the author, Christine Comoford-Lynch, before I picked up the book. And I wasn't sure that this wasn't a kind of "look-at-me-ain't-I-wonderful" story. But the book more than delivers quality stories and life lessons. Comoford-Lynch is a real authentic "player" in a man's world of venture capital and high-tech.

I'll admit I was attracted to the book for the title - and I'm probably not the only one. Who among us doesn't feel they too are a rebel? (Even while we sip our Starbuck's...) Especially those of us who have forged our own paths into self-employment at home on the Internet...

But this woman - well, she went from high-school drop out, to monk, to being one of the few women to work at Microsoft in the early days, to multimillionaire. Christine Comaford-Lynch dated Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and other powerful figures, and she also faced humiliation by association with a con-artist guru.

Rules for Renegades is full of life lessons including some excellent ideas for networking and facing rejection. Read it for fun, for business tips, for personal development. But be sure to read it. I loved it.

Harvard Biz Press: Results-Driven Manager

Here's a great series of crucial topics for managers put out by the Harvard Business School Press: The Results-Driven Manager.

This week I read Presentations that Persuade and Motivate. Since no one can avoid having to make a presentation forever, (although I try my darnest!) this book is important. Making presentations - to clients, employees, peers, and supervisors - has become an integral part of any successful person's job.

This book helps you to customize your message, read and react to your audience's body language, tackle tough questions, and deliver memorable closings audiences will act on.

Gimme some of that! Next week Denise and I are putting on our Blog Squad biz suits and flying off to Washington DC. We are on two panels at the Publishers Marketing Association University, before the big book event, BEA.

On Wednesday we are on Debbie Weil's panel about using blogs for writing and marketing a book.

On Thursday, we are speaking with Suzanne Falter-Barns on automatic book marketing.

And if you are in the area, come see us, we'll buy you a cup of coffee.

Ram Charan: Converting Ideas Into Growth

I am a big fan of Ram Charan and love his writing (Execution, What the CEO Wants You to Know, Confronting Reality, The Leadership Pipeline). Now he's got a new book out, Profitable Growth is Everyone's Business: 10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning.

Thanks to Professor Charan's book publicist, Anna Suknov, here's an article that speaks about the ideas in his newest book:

Convert Ideas into Growth 
By Ram Charan
Author of Profitable Growth
© 2004 by Ram Charan.  Profitable Growth Published by Crown Business a division of Random House,  Inc. 2006

Ideation is the flow of ideas that can be converted into growth on a consistent basis. Ideas for new products and/or services can come from two places: inside your organization or outside of it. Let's deal with the internal sources first.

I sometimes hear CEOs saying, "We don't have enough ideas inside our organization. They aren't flowing, and the ones that do surface aren't very good."
Frequently, their explanation for why that is the case is that they have hired the wrong people, or that they are just not creative enough.

That is possible, of course, but I find it is rarely the true explanation.

The reason there may not be enough ideas could be as simple as people not believing that you, the leader, are serious about wanting growth, and so they focus their attention elsewhere. If the leader just talks a good game about growth, but doesn't take action, then people see through him immediately.

Another likelihood: The ideas are there, but they are buried under layers of bureaucracy that keep them from surfacing.

The Disorganized Executive

I just finished reading CrazyBusy by Dr. Edward Hallowell, who discusses the sources of distraction and disorganization in our modern world. He's an expert in ADD (attention deficit disorder), and while he sees a huge increase in ADD complaints since the mid 90s, most people are suffering from "severe cases of modern life."

It's a good read that includes 10 priniciples for staying calm, including staying connected to what matters most to us, and finding one's "right rhythm." This is a good read for anyone living in the "fast lane," doing more, but feeling less fulfilled and more disorganized.

For more on the disorganized habits of executives, read John Agno's post on his Coaching Tips blog.

Socrates & Second Thoughts About Books

I just ran across this brilliant bit about what Socrates thought about those new-fangled things someone invented for telling stories: books. This comes from Thomas West, Thinking Like Einstein: Returning to Our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization.

Each technology has its limits. Long ago, Socrates described some second thoughts he had about the new and questionable technology called a "book." He thought it had several weaknesses. A book could not adjust what it was saying, as a living person would, to what would be appropriate for certain listeners or specific times or places.

In addition, a book could not be interactive, as in a conversation or dialogue between persons. And finally, according to Socrates, in a book the written words "seem to talk to you as if they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing forever."

After more than two millennia, it now seems that a new kind of technology, with interactive multimedia capabilities, may be beginning to address some of Socrates' concerns.

In all truth I have not read Socrates, nor Thomas West's brilliant book. I found this passage in another book, Crazy Busy, by Dr. Edward Hallowell. More about that book later.

Chicken Soup? CPR for the Soul!

My colleague Mike Jay, a long time business coach, has been creating ebooks and audio programs for nearly 8 years, and has just completed an amazing book and series of programs called CPR For The SOUL.

If you invest in one personal growth program this year, this is it. There are many key products in CPR For the SOUL to assist you in understanding who you are at a deeper level. This contributes to building a successful business and marketing your practice, your products, and developing your ideas.

Here's how you can participate:

You can purchase Mike's new book today April 14, 2006, and pick up the free bonus package Mike has assembled to accompany the book for only 39.95, plus shipping.

Just click here for details on CPR For The SOUL.

For those of you who know the name, Mike Jay's been training business coaches and is active in the Executive Coaching Summit held every year before the International Coach Federation conference. He founded B-Coach Systems from which I graduated in 2000.

He has an amazing grasp of both business and psychological systems which he synthesizes into programs for human and business growth.

So, forget Chicken Soup! This is CPR for the Soul!

Wrestling Rhinos in the Office

This book is not only very clever in comparing workplace grumps to rhinos, but it is full of useful practical wisdom for "conquering conflict in the wilds of work."

Wrestling Rhinos: Conquering Conflict in the Wilds of Work. Rhoberta Shaler, Ph.D. 2nd Edition 2006 People Skills Press, San Diego CA

Rhoberta is an executive coach, speaker and author who is an expert in communications and conflict management. She is CEO of Optimize! Institute, in Escondido, CA.

Dr. Shaler's no-nonsense insights and plain truths about how to "play nicely together in the company sandbox" show you how to have skills to speak up confidently, teach people how to treat you, and get what you need and want. It's like a manual for taming the rhinos you come into contact with, either in your office, or at home. It also mentions how we can tame our inner rhinos.

"Rhinoceros are often protrayed as aggressive and unintelligent but that is not their true nature. They simply cannot see. That's the case with 'rhino' people as well. They simply do not see. They do not see any other ways to behave, interact, solve problems, or to make their pain go away. So, they lash out in one way or another."

I whole-heartedly recommend this book. It's fun, informative and useful.

The Leadership Pipeline

   The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership-Powered Company by Ram Charan Stephen Drotter and James Noel (2001) Jossey-Bass

The premise of this important book is that it is no longer sufficient to move people up to higher levels of responsibility based on past performance without ensuring they have what it takes to succeed in new and different positions. Of course this makes sense, but few organizations have adequately defined the different requirements in higher levels of leadership.

The analogy of a pipeline with sharp turns is helpful. The authors leave nothing up to chance, nothing is assumed.

This book is a great manual for organizations willing to transform their succession plans from replacement charts to leadership development programs.

I've written an article based on this book, Winning the War for Leadership Talent, available for your newsletters through www.CustomizedNewsletters.com .